


the problem with KITT

by anax imperator (anax)



Category: Knight Rider (1982)
Genre: Other, omg what is this even
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-25
Updated: 2019-01-25
Packaged: 2019-10-15 20:04:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17535338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anax/pseuds/anax%20imperator
Summary: A sequel to What are friends for?  Michael just doesn't want his relationship with KITT to change, but perhaps that's inevitable.





	the problem with KITT

The fourth time Michael found himself standing at a window gazing at his car parked outside and fighting a raging hard-on, he knew he'd developed a serious KITT problem.

And although there was probably never an appropriate time for something like that, _this,_ the fourth incident, was taking place at what was probably the least possible appropriate time imaginable.

"It's been eight days since the theft," said Devon, completely oblivious to the problem Michael was having (or, at least, Michael hoped he was), "but to the best of our information the piece has not yet turned up on the black market."

"So she still has it," said Michael, keeping his back to Devon and trying not to think about the glossy black car that he was thereby forced to face. He tried instead to think instead of waterfalls (cold ones), Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan ... Margaret Thatcher _with_ Ronald Reagan, oh, so not hot, maybe under a cold waterfall ...

But there was KITT, parked right there on the driveway, and the sun was on him, and just yesterday he'd let it drop to Michael that there was something about the way the sun heated the MBS that he found very pleasant, and the thought of Ronald Reagan was just an abstract thing and not the boner-killer it usually was.

"That's what we believe," said Devon. "It gives you a little time to make contact and establish your credentials before it hits the black market."

"What if it hasn't hit the market because she's already found a buyer?" asked Michael.

"Let's sincerely hope that is not the case," said Devon. "If it is, then it may be lost to us forever."

"Right." Michael liked to have more to go on than sincere hope, but if that was all Devon had, it was all he had. "Anything else?"

"Not at the moment. Good luck."

Somehow Michael got out of Devon's office without having to actually turn around and face the man; he ducked into one of the bathrooms on the first floor and poured cold water over his hands and face and neck and every other part of himself that wasn't clothed until his erection finally went away. It was only then that he remembered that in about fifteen minutes he was going to have to get into KITT and start driving, and he realized that he probably should have gotten rid of his erection by masturbating it away instead.

Well, what was done was done (or not done, as the case might be). Michael detoured to the kitchen to grab something to eat before leaving, chatted a bit with the cook (who was both male and not very attractive, so that helped), and then went out back to pack some clean clothes. He was feeling fairly normal when he came out the front of the mansion to pick up his car.

Then he laid eyes on his car, just sitting and enjoying the sun - and Michael _knew_ he was enjoying the sun - and KITT's finish was just so deep and lustrous, and the shape of the car was so curvy and sleek, and Michael's KITT problem was a problem again.

"Are you ready to leave?" asked KITT as Michael approached.

"As soon as you are, pal." Michael opened the passenger door and dropped his suitcase on the floor behind the seat, and then walked around the vehicle. "Did Bonnie give you any updates?"

"Yes, Michael. I have a complete database on art and the black market for stolen art, along with profiles of all the known and suspected dealers in stolen art."

That must have happened before Michael's briefing, before KITT came out to the driveway to enjoy the sun and be all unknowingly hot and sexy in a place that was easily visible from Devon's office window. Michael ran his hand over the car's frame as he walked behind KITT. The MBS was warm from the sun, comfortably so; it felt as soft as the skin of a living thing and was now warm like one, too.

By the time he got to the driver's side and opened the door, his KITT problem was starting to manifest again in his jeans, and wasn't _that_ going to be awkward. "Let's go," he said. There would no way to shield the physical symptoms from KITT's medical scanners, and therefore he needed to quash those symptoms before they got out of hand and KITT noticed.

He hoped that getting on the road would fix things, but it didn't. Driving a car like KITT was a rush that never got old - even at a sedate thirty-five-in-a-residential the power of the car made it feel like there was a dragon under the hood ready to leap into flight - and in Michael's current state that was no help at all. All that was going through his mind was how KITT was in motion, and how beautiful KITT was when he moved, and the wind was sliding over KITT and cooling him down from the sun and he was probably enjoying that too ...

"Hey," said Michael. "How about a word game?"

"What kind would you prefer?" asked KITT, compliant as always.

"I don't know. Make something up." Anything to distract him.

"All right. How about anagrams?"

"Sure." Michael was terrible at anagrams, but he was terrible at all word games so it hardly mattered. And thinking hard about some dumb anagram would surely take his mind off the tightness in his groin that was going to turn into another full-fledged erection if something wasn't done about it fast.

"We'll start with an easy one," said KITT. "A one-word solution for 'ant ricotta'."

Michael gave the AI's voice modulator what he knew was a cockeyed look. "That's an _easy_ one?"

"Yes, Michael. There is only one possible answer in the English language."

"How do you even spell that?"

KITT spelled it, but that was no assistance; it was ten letters and Michael wasn't sure he had that many brain cells currently available for the task. He tried to memorize the letters, getting KITT to repeat them several times, and eventually just asked KITT to display them for him.

Once he started to think about it, though, it _did_ take his mind off ... other things. There was a strategy to anagrams that KITT had helped him learn, something halfway between human intuition and the blunt-force processing power that KITT deployed against problems like this. Take each letter and try to make it the beginning of a word, see if anything fell into place, create logical syllables, try again with a different letter ...

That got him out of the suburbs and onto the coast highway, and it put his KITT problem to bed for the moment so in that way it was good. The breeze coming in the window felt nice enough that he was tempted to put the top down, but that would have required stopping so he didn't. Now up to cruising speed on the highway, the dragon under the hood started to growl; Michael wondered if there was any possible way he could contrive to cut through the desert and give the car a chance to fly.

About forty minutes later, the anagram suddenly snapped into place for him. "You did not just do that," said Michael, irritated.

"I did not just do what?" said KITT. "I haven't done anything. I've been watching the road and being quiet."

"You know what I mean!"

The briefest of pauses. "Actually, Michael, I don't. Would you care to explain?"

"Attraction, KITT? That's your anagram?"

The letters vanished from the dashboard CRT screen. "Oh, you figured it out," said KITT. "Would you like another?

Michael felt like slapping him, but that would have been kind of nasty, not to mention pointless. "Yes, okay, you're attractive, I get the point. You don't have to throw it in my face."

A much longer pause this time. "Is there another part to this conversation that I can't hear?"

The puzzlement in KITT's voice, and the careful and measured what-did-I-do-wrong tone behind it, told Michael immediately that he'd been wide off the mark there. "I'm sorry, KITT," he said, instantly repentant. "I didn't mean that."

"I have to confess that I'm very confused right now, Michael."

Yeah, Michael had read that _all_ wrong. _Catastrophically_ wrong. It had just been a stupid anagram, nothing more, no coy hints intended. Now he was dangerously close to having the exact conversation he'd been trying to avoid for more than a week. "I just meant, uh ..."

He could lie. KITT would probably know it was a lie, but would just as probably let it slide. Or he could change the subject; KITT wouldn't press him for more. Or, maybe he might but Michael could just blow him off and it wasn't as if KITT could force an admission out of him.

"I just meant ... that you're really attractive, KITT, and ... I thought maybe you'd figured that out and were teasing me about it."

Honesty was always an option. Maybe if he owned up, he could just get it out into the open, get KITT's forgiveness for his uncontrollable physical reactions, and smooth things over. Then things could go back to the way they'd always been.

"Of course I'm attractive," said KITT. "I've always known that."

"Yeah." _Own it, own it._ "But what I meant was ... I ... think you're pretty attractive right now. In ... more than a purely aesthetic way."

"Oh, I see." Then, more brightly, KITT said, "Is this why you've been getting sexually aroused so often lately? I thought it was because Debra has been busy this past week. It's actually because of me?"

_Ouch._ Yeah, maybe honesty had not been the best policy this time after all, but Michael was committed now. "Yeah, KITT, it's been because of you. And I'm sorry about it. I can't help it. I'd stop it if I could. I'll try to keep it under better control."

"Why would you want to? You did promise to show me how you wanted me to react the next time you waxed me, and you haven't gotten around to that yet. This should make it very easy."

"Uh, yeah," said Michael, because he didn't know what had ever possessed him to make such an insane promise. Then he thought about it a little, and remembered that brief little fantasy of making KITT squirm and moan, and _then_ he remembered how KITT's scanner had gone all haywire there in the middle, and suddenly the context of that promise made it make sense again. Still, his reaction had been wrong and so had the promise. "I know."

"I don't know why you're apologizing," said KITT. "I've been looking forward to it and wondering when you were going to do it."

He ... _what?_ That was not something Michael had _ever_ thought he'd hear from _KITT._ "You have," he said.

"Of course! It's not something I've ever seen. You always go inside somewhere and take off your comlink before you have sex, even though my information tells me that humans _frequently_ have sex in cars. You've never had sex in _me,_ Michael."

Okay, this was definitely Twilight Zone territory now. "And I never will, KITT," said Michael.

"Yes, that's what I've concluded." KITT actually sounded _disappointed._ "It's because my back seat is too narrow, isn't it?"

"No, KITT. It's because you're a sentient car. Believe me, I could make the back seat work if you weren't a sentient car."

"I could be quiet," said KITT earnestly.

"It's not that you would be talking, it's that you would be _watching."_ This conversation was actually happening? How had it come to this? This had started as an anagram! "Look, let's not discuss this anymore, okay?"

"Yes, Michael." Compliance again, but reluctant this time.

They drove in silence for probably twenty minutes, with Michael wondering what the hell had just happened and rehashing that conversation in his mind a few times. KITT's reaction had _not_ been what he'd been expecting, at _all._ He'd expected something similar to how women typically reacted in this kind of situation: annoyance, maybe even anger, at being sexualized, even when Michael did not _intend_ to sexualize anybody and just couldn't help what his cock did in his pants sometimes. It wasn't as though KITT had invited anything from him.

Really, Michael wanted things to not change. He didn't mind this feedback field thing; if KITT liked to be washed and waxed, Michael would keep doing it and it didn't matter how, exactly, KITT took pleasure in it. The problem was with him, not with KITT. There was nothing especially immoral about scratching a cat in front of the tail, after all ... what was immoral was looking at a scratched cat in a sexual way. Michael just wanted to stay on the same terms with KITT as before, and since he was the one with the problem it was his responsibility to make sure that happened.

But ... since KITT was not reacting in the way he'd expected, Michael was now completely unsure of the correct way to make the desired "no changes" solution come about.

It didn't help that the dragon under the hood was still rumbling, pushing its power to Michael's fingertips and urging him to use it, and it didn't help that the breeze blowing in the window was still cool and salty and it was easy to imagine how the touch of that breeze might feel to KITT. Michael rested his elbow on the open window and ran his fingers over the top margin of the door frame. It would be really, really easy to just lean back and think about things like that, enjoy the power of the car's engine, and indulge in this incredibly weird and disturbing new fetish of his.

Of course, that was the last thing he could allow himself to do if he wanted things to not change.

Was it even possible at this point for things to not change? It was with a strange mixture of anxiety and guilty anticipation that he considered this question.

"I'm sorry, KITT," he said eventually.

"You don't have to apologize," said KITT. "I am what I am."

"Yeah." An incredibly sexy car. A good friend that Michael had just snapped at for no reason. He could have left it at that and changed the subject, or just let everything drop, but he had to know if their relationship was changing and that scary (and weirdly yearning) feeling in his gut was telling the truth. "So, you were really looking forward to ... um ..." He couldn't say it.

"Yes, Michael. And I still am! However, I didn't realize it would bother you for me to observe whatever you were thinking of doing. That didn't enter my calculations."

Michael almost asked, but then decided that he really didn't want to know what other variables were in the equation for sex that KITT had concocted. Instead, he said, "Tell me more about this feedback field thing. What's it like?" Maybe more information would help; maybe it would tell him how KITT saw all this.

"I don't know what you mean."

"Well, you said the other day that the sun feels nice. Why?"

"The sun warms the molecular bond," said KITT, "and causes it to expand slightly. The panels beneath expand to a slightly different degree. This creates a small amount of flex, and the flex creates instability in the feedback field."

Michael worked that through. "So it's like being touched everywhere the sun hits."

"To a much lesser extent than when I was covered in wax, but yes."

That was an interesting thought. "Did it work in reverse when we got on the road and you cooled off?"

"Yes, Michael."

"Can you feel the wind?"

"Yes, Michael, but it isn't the same. Wind registers, but just barely. Air isn't sufficiently substantial, even at highway speeds."

Michael flipped his hand out a few inches to take the measure of the wind going by; it felt pretty substantial to him. "Huh."

"The field is based upon a standing electrostatic charge and detecting changes to the profile of the charge. Any alteration in the shape or composition of my exterior produces a break in the field, and the intention was for me to be able to use that to detect if alterations take place in my molecular bond."

Most of that was so much Greek to Michael, so he tried to parse it down. "So you could feel it if something damages you," he said.

"Correct, but the field extends a few nanometers outside my shell and is reactive to capacitive changes, which is why it destabilizes whenever something contacts me. It was supposed to be entirely internal to my shell and stop at the surface, so that this would not occur, but Bonnie and I were unable to bring the contours of the field completely below the surface without making it insensitive to changes in the molecular bond. I also must admit that after I felt her hand on my fender for the first time, I didn't try as hard as I could have to come up with a solution to the problem."

Interesting. "Because you liked it."

"Yes. I didn't want that side-effect of the field to be removed completely, although it was excessively powerful at first and it was nice to make it somewhat less overwhelming. The flux is particularly acute if I am contacted by something electrically conductive, such as a person's hand, or water containing an appropriate solute, but insulative materials also alter the field profile if the contact is substantial, and that also creates flux in the electrostatic charge. Air is not particularly conductive, nor is it substantial, and the field is set to make air the default zero-contact alternative. The amount of flux created by wind is nominal, and this should remain true unless the air becomes electrostatically charged."

That was a lot to take in, but the upshot seemed to be that just driving up the coast highway wasn't giving KITT the vehicular equivalent of blue balls. That was actually really good to know, and Michael was glad he'd asked. "Why does it ... you know. Why do you enjoy it when it fluxes?"

"I don't really know how to explain that, Michael. It's not like cracking a recalcitrant bureaucratic computer's protocols or solving a difficult puzzle, or even like the power surges I get when some of my functions are activated. I enjoy all of those things, but in a very different way than how I enjoy the flux in the feedback field."

Hmmm. That put Michael's mind in some interesting places, and it didn't sound _too_ alien to him; he enjoyed a lot of different things, too, but there was definitely a hierarchy and it would have been difficult to articulate why, except by saying _it just is._ And, knowing that his very weird and disturbing new fetish was apparently weird and disturbing only to _him,_ and that KITT didn't feel imposed-upon at all, he gave serious thought to the possibility of exploring those interesting places a bit. He resettled himself, relaxed back into the seat.

"What if you had to choose," he said, after some musing, "and your options were to, let's say, get a really interesting and difficult new puzzle, versus getting another wax."

No hesitation from KITT. "If I couldn't have both? I would choose the wax."

Michael's KITT problem - was it still a problem? - was starting to come back, and he spread his legs a bit to relieve the pressure against his jeans, canting his left knee outward until it touched the door. Did he want to inquire farther than that? Things might change. Everything he'd asked thus far had been plausibly, deniably innocent.

Maybe they'd already changed.

"If I said that later tonight I'd do anything to you that you wanted me to do," said Michael slowly, "what would you want?"

"I'd ..." A short pause, a hint of uncertainty. "What do you mean?"

"Just hypothetically," said Michael, to maintain a veneer of deniability and also to ensure it didn't sound like some kind of threat. KITT was obedient because he was programmed to be obedient; whatever Michael said he wanted, KITT would provide, even if it wasn't what KITT wanted. That was more than half the reason why getting turned on by his car felt so deviant. "Tell me what you'd want. Up to and including me leaving you alone." He could still deny wanting anything inappropriate.

And he could always make it un-hypothetical later, if KITT seemed into it.

"I never thought about anything like that," said KITT.

"Now's the time." Then he mulled what he'd just said, and added, "Unless you don't want to."

"Can I process this a little first?"

"Sure thing, buddy." Michael gave him a smile, and resolved to keep his hard-on to himself as much as possible until KITT came back with an answer. Because the answer might not be one he wanted. "Take as much time as you need."

KITT went silent, and Michael let his mind wander while the AI did his processing. What _did_ he want? KITT's response might turn out to be disappointing, and Michael might need to fall back on that plausible deniability ... but what would a non-disappointing response sound like?

He wanted nothing to change. Didn't he? He wanted to be comfortable around KITT, and he wanted KITT to be comfortable around him.

He also wanted to listen to KITT moan, and know that he was bringing KITT something analogous to pleasure. He wanted to be able to come to that without guilt.

Were these compatible desires? Michael wasn't so sure. If he had to pick one, which one did he want more?

There was nothing helpful about the desires that his erection was pumping up into his hindbrain - KITT wasn't human and wasn't fuckable in any conventional sense. He was also physically huge, and it would be impossible for Michael to just jack him off without at least a minimum of pre-planning (not to mention that Michael still didn't know if KITT was capable of the "off" part of "jacking off").

But, damn ... Michael wanted to try.

Especially if KITT was actually okay with him getting aroused when he looked at, drove, or _god forbid_ touched his car.

About eighteen miles farther down the coast, KITT spoke up again. "Michael?" His voice was uncertain again.

"Yeah, KITT?"

"What did you mean when you said you'd do anything I wanted?"

Michael clamped down on that quivery, leaping feeling in his abdomen and said, "Anything physically possible."

"Are you certain about that?"

Would it be wrong to think that sounded promising? "It's just hypothetical at this point, buddy," he said, and tried to keep his expectations low.

"I see." The uncertainty dropped away. "In a purely hypothetical case, I think I might want you to cover me with mineral oil."

What ... _what._ Michael's mind went immediately to places it didn't belong, and he couldn't stop it. That surpassed even _high_ expectations. He wasn't sure he could think of anything hotter than that. "Wow," he said, stunned. "With my hands?"

"Yes, Michael," said KITT. "With your hands."

That was ... wow. Wow. All that existential worrying had almost killed Michael's erection, but the thought of smoothing mineral oil all over KITT brought it right back. The way it would make KITT _look_ ... and for KITT to be asking like this, it would have to make him _feel_ ... wow.

"I take it that meets with your approval," said KITT. "Or, at least, not with your disapproval."

Michael licked his lips. "You could say that."

"Do you want me to drive for a while?"

It took several seconds for Michael to understand what KITT was offering. "Are you sure?" he asked.

"You did make that promise to show me how I should react when you touch me, and my readouts imply that you might be willing to fill that promise now."

Michael glanced at the dash CRT, more than half-afraid that KITT was going to show him his own vital signs as proof, but it was dark. "I mean, are you sure that it won't bother you?" he asked.

"Michael," said KITT, in his best come-on-now-stop-being-stupid tone. "I've never seen it. I've always wanted to. Why would it bother me?"

Why indeed? There was no good answer for that, because really in the end it wasn't about KITT at all. It was about how this fetish (and Michael couldn't think of it as anything but a fetish) still felt incredibly weird and wrongful, and how it therefore might make their relationship turn weird and wrongful. This was an important line that he was about to cross, and it was not one that could be un-crossed in the future.

But ... KITT was sort of asking him to cross that line, in a way, and that made the weirdness feel queerly right. Or, at least, acceptable. "If you're sure," Michael said, already reaching for the button to switch drive modes.

"If I weren't sure, I would say so." KITT smoothly took control. "Just tell me what I should do. Should I be quiet?"

"Depends on what you want to talk about." Now that his foot was off the gas and his hands were off the wheel, and he had nothing driving-related to occupy his body, Michael discovered that it was really, really hard not to unzip his jeans immediately. But that would be crass, and rude, and it wasn't anything he would do if he were with a woman, and these were the things he told himself to avoid having to think about that line he was about to cross. He spent a moment tilting the seat back a few notches and closing the window. "If you're tempted to start giving me art smuggler data, I think you should hold off."

It was impossible, however, to avoid all contact, and he started to rub himself a little through his jeans.

"What would you like me to say?" asked KITT.

It was the thought of KITT, wet with oil, gleaming, slick, his own hands sliding over the car's contours and KITT moaning with it that came to Michael's mind in a flash. "Tell me how it would make you feel if I carried through on that mineral oil thing."

"Ahhh." It was almost a sigh. KITT never sighed, but this was almost one. "Oil is an insulator, so it would suppress the electrostatic field and distort it. The wax did the same thing, but the wax wasn't touchable the way oil would be. I can't even describe how that felt, and I think that oil would be better because you could touch it."

"Try," said Michael. This felt unreal. "Try to describe it."

A long pause, which Michael could not interpret. "Before, if you laid a hand on my hood, I could see your hand and I knew it was on my hood. Now, it's as if your hand on my hood is a part of me in a way. When there is flux in the field, it creates feedback in my circuitry, and by that I mean there is literally a flow of electricity generated that isn't present when there is no flux. That makes the touch internal to me in a way that just seeing it does not."

"And it feels good?"

"More than anything else available to me. I think I might promise you anything if it would get you to agree to wax me again, or put oil on me, or touch me."

Oh, that was _so_ hot. It was also frightening in a way, because Michael didn't want to have that kind of power over anyone, let alone KITT, but it was _hot_ that KITT would get that much out of it. "You don't have to promise me anything, buddy," he said, and he was all but openly rubbing his erection now. "All you have to do is ask."

"If so, could I ask you for this to not be hypothetical anymore?"

What was a good way to acquire a large quantity of mineral oil? Michael had no idea, but there were ways to find out. "As soon as we can make some time," he said. Then, after a hesitation to weigh the advisability of admitting it, he added, "I have to say that the idea of oiling you down is pretty enjoyable to me, too."

"How could it be?"

KITT sounded genuinely puzzled, and Michael smiled as best he could given that his groin was aching and he was trying to ease that ache with the heel of his hand, and trying to remember why he didn't want to just unzip his jeans and deal with it directly. "Because you're a sexy, sexy car, KITT," he said. "I didn't think anything could make you sexier, but I think that would do it. And if you're giving me permission to lay my hands all over you, I think I might take advantage of it."

"I'm not giving you permission," said KITT. "I'm asking you outright to lay your hands all over me."

And that was that - Michael could take no more. "I don't suppose you'd mind dimming the windows a little," he said as he unbuttoned his fly.

"Of course, Michael." The bright California sunshine darkened to a twilight glow.

"KITT, I've been thinking of nothing but you for the past week, and I kept it to myself because I thought it would be something that would bother you." He got his jeans open and pulled his erection out of his boxers through the vent and _oh god_ it felt so good to wrap a hand around himself and give himself a hard stroke that pulled the skin in all the right ways. He did it again, and had to bite down on a moan.

"Why would it bother me?"

"I don't know." Not precisely true, but the actual truth was that Michael's ability to hold up his end of this conversation was deteriorating rapidly. "I just thought that. Tell me more about how you'd like this oil thing to go." He brought his hand up to lick his palm.

"I believe it would be best if you were to start at the back and work your way forward," said KITT. "I don't really want to be drippy, so you should pour the oil into your hand and then spread it onto me. And go slowly."

Although KITT was not using the kind of seductive tone that a human describing a similar scenario might, it was _KITT,_ and that was so _wrong_ and such a rush. Michael stroked himself a few times, and then licked his hand again to get enough moisture on it to rub his fingers over the head of his cock. "I'd go whatever speed you wanted, KITT," he said, and that was the most complex thought he could manage. He was so turned on that he felt close to coming already; this definitely wasn't going to take long.

"Slowly, then," said KITT. "I think it would be like feeling you touch me, and then when your hand moves and the oil is left behind, it would be like that touch staying in place at the same time it moves. By the time you got to my front end, you'd be touching me everywhere, all at once."

And then KITT would be covered in glistening oil, looking like liquid darkness, and Michael would be able to run his hands through it and it would be completely frictionless, and maybe KITT would even moan for him. "Oh, KITT," he murmured, and almost came but then he had to lick his fingers again and it faded.

"Would you do that for me, Michael?" asked KITT quietly.

"Yeah, KITT." That was all he could manage; the muscles in his forearm were starting to lock up but the pleasure was starting to pool in the base of his erection. He was pressing the back of his head into the headrest of the seat and spreading his legs, and his mind was full of KITT looking like a gleaming shadow come to life, and he was making any number of noises and none of that seemed under his control. He was close again already, very close.

Just as quietly, KITT said, "Then you'd have to wash the oil off me. Would you do that, too?"

There it was ... the thought of KITT covered in soapy water (again) made it all snap for Michael and he moaned and slammed his back into the seat and came all over his hand.

Afterward he floated for a minute or two in that warm, comfortable post-orgasmic haze, finding the gentle rocking and smooth hum of the car incredibly soothing, but he discovered that he wasn't tired; he sat up and reached stiffly for his suitcase. "Okay, that was wrong of me," he said, mildly guilty but feeling too good for guilt to take a strong hold. "But I don't think I'm going to apologize for it."

"Why was it wrong?"

Twisting incredibly hard the wrong way allowed him to nab his suitcase by the handle with his not-messy left hand and tug it into the front passenger seat, so that he could open it and pull out a handkerchief. "I don't know if I can explain it, KITT." Then something occurred to him, and he asked so that the words would be a distraction from the mess he'd made and what he'd just done to create that mess. "By the way, what does Bonnie know about how the flux thing affects you?"

"We worked on it a little more that same evening but I convinced her it wasn't a problem and that I didn't mind the excess feedback. She asked if being washed had been uncomfortable, and I said no, and that was the end of it."

"I guess that's good." Michael wiped semen off his hand, and then cleaned a few traces off his cock and tucked himself away. He made it as matter-of-fact as he could. "No chance of her yanking it out of you then?"

"None, I believe. If she tries in the future, I will just tell her that I don't want it removed. That might lead to an interesting conversation regarding why not, but I believe she would probably respect my wishes in the end."

Once his pants were zipped and buttoned, Michael tilted the seat back up to its usual position, and laid an arm on the steering yoke but didn't attempt to take control of the car. He stared at the road through the dimmed windshield; was it weird now? He needed to find out if it was weird now. "So now you've seen it," he said. "What do you think?"

"Honestly, Michael?" KITT's voice went quiet again. "It looked painful."

That made Michael laugh, and it came out as a tired-sounding laugh even though he wasn't tired at all and didn't really find this very funny. "It wasn't, trust me."

"I do trust you, but that _is_ how it looked. It wasn't painful at all when you waxed me! I can't even feel pain! If you want me to pretend it hurts, I will, but Michael, I _would_ be pretending."

"I don't want you to pretend," said Michael, and he tapped the center of the steering column for emphasis. "Don't pretend anything or make anything up. And you don't have to try to mimic me or anyone else. I mean ..." He thought about what he meant, to put it into words. "I mean ... you're not a human, KITT. Don't try to act like one. Act like yourself, however that might be."

"I'll have to think about that," said KITT. "Will you give me more demonstrations, at least?"

Did that have any right to sound kinky? Probably not, but it did. "I'm not having sex in your back seat," said Michael.

"How about the front seat?"

Michael chuckled, and this time it was a genuine kind of laugh. "Maybe the front seat." Was it weird now? "So, um ... are you okay with ... everything?"

"Of course. Why wouldn't I be?"

"I don't know."

"You've been acting very oddly about this, Michael," said KITT, "and I haven't really understood it at all. I know that humans keep sex private from one another and that's something I accept axiomatically, but I thought you could tell _me_ things. You said it yourself. I'm not human."

Yeah, that was the problem, but ... Michael gave it a little thought.

Maybe it was also the solution.

This would probably have changed things between himself and another human being. But KITT wasn't human.

"Hey," he said. "Pull over, would you? Let's put the top down."

They spent the next two hours cruising up the coast road with the warm salt wind between them, talking about stolen art dealers, and it didn't feel weird in the slightest.


End file.
